The Minimum Cell As A House

Workshop 01 Housing Finance and Regulation
The Minimum Cell as a House: ideas and forms in social housing in

search of a Home
Pedro Fonseca Jorge
Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto, Via Panormica, s/n, 4150-755 Porto, Portugal
e-mail: egrojordep@gmail.com
Abstract
Throughout the last century efforts have been made in order to correspond to a high demand of housing in Europe.
From the high density of the traditional city, the consequences of the Industrial Revolution or the hardships of
war(s), social housing has been a laboratory of experiences that include living space, shape, volume and urban
solutions. The obtained results navigate through traditional answers to the most radical experiments, but al search
for the same thing: a sense of belonging sustained in the idea of the house in its various demonstrations, such as
shape, association, internal space and ways of use.
The present analysis tries to search within the twentieth century this house in various social or subsidize
experiences, according to its various restrictions, of cost and effectiveness, for example. From the single houses of a
garden city to the cells of Le Corbusiers Units dHabitation, each present an interpretation of the traditional
house in its shape and use, in a more or less obvious manner.
We will take in to account different perspectives in the formalization and use of the housing cell, starting with the
inner spatial solutions used in various case-studies, from the point of view of the dweller (according to its traditions
versus their idealized house) and the architect (who tries to substitute tradition for efficiency, or uses tradition as
a basis for modernity). After that we will approach the house as a shape or single unit, and the way that its idea was
formalized as single houses or the vertical sum of individual units, always taking into account their ideological and
political backgrounds.
Keywords: Minimum, house, dwelling, home.
Introduction
Among the models of social housing, since the beginning of the use of the term, there has always been the
need to balance the wanted house and the feasible house. The boundaries defined by cost always
implied a compromise between the idealized house by the tenant (maintaining is customs) or by the
architect (through the idealization of new spatial solutions, new ways of living)
Definition
What is intended with this paper is how the house, in its more elemental shape and idea, has always
been manifested in the way dwellers wanted to live, or others idealize they should. This house its its
most primeval shape, as an isolated building, maybe bucolic, that raises a sense of ownership (opposed
to the shared urban dwelling, for instance).
It might sound strange to search such house in social or subsidized housing, because the main ideas that
occurs are those of density or stacking where an isolated element seems impossible to recognize. But this
is an idea that is possible to demystify because, in between the dwellers dream home and the architects
ideal one, that house was a frequent presence in the XX century housing projects.
The House as spatial definition: use and symbol

The dialectics established among the dreamed house and the proposed one where based on many factors,
among them dweller and architect, cost and idea, available space and its use or symbolism. This latest
item states for the more controversial one, since there is an encounter among the dwellers ancient living
ways and its desire to reproduce his ideas of another social stratum. In the architects point of view there
is a need to respond to new realities, new ways of life (idealized or not), rejecting any reference to
supposed inadequate models.
Popular aspirations
In the early XXs, workers living conditions where rather bad, as the result of overcrowded cities where
the poorer families only could afford a room, or at best, part of a shared house. However, since they were
coming mostly from the countryside, they brought with them their ancient lifestyles, based upon (...)
big rural kitchens, centered in the fireplace1. However, the city brings to their knowledge new models of
housing, including the bourgeois house.
Figure 1: Popular kitchens
Bourgeois Ambitions
So, opposed to the rural model, synonymous of poverty, the bourgeois model becomes an aspiration, in its
shape, but also because of the social (and financial) statement it symbolizes.
There was, of course, the impossibility to offer each family a bourgeois house, but the goal is kept, even if
translated to small spaces that intended to be a symbol rather than something really useful. After the
World War I the British government creates a panel of woman advisers in order to give a female
perspective to the creation of new housing types. This was a way to acknowledge their part in home
management but also to recognize their efforts during the war. Their solution referred a small room by the
entrance used as a space for receiving guests, for example2, but it didnt had much success, since the costs
an area involved were unbearable and with no practical uses.
Nunes, Joo Pedro Silva - Lisboa, arquitectura e urbanismo escala humana: planeamento urbano e
arquitectura de habitao em Olivais Sul, Lisboa 1959-1969, 2007, Cmara Municipal de Lisboa, ISBN: 978-9728543-08-2
2
Swenarton, M.- Building the New Jerusalem, HIS BRE Press, 2008, pages 46-7

It must be said, however, that there is modest investigation, among the one consulted, that tried to deal
with the real use of the space in social housing, to perceive, for instance, if those aspirations were still
manifested in common spaces. Nevertheless there were some inquiries done in order to establish the
populations dream house, especially during the Italian Neo-realism, a movement that tried to make an
approach to the real populations (as opposed to the ideal dweller of the Modern Movement). The INACasa process (INA: Instituto Nazionale Assicurazione; Casa: house) included the participation of the
populations in the design of their new houses (part of their salary was retained voluntarily to build them),
and the surveys revealed that 25% of the dwellers wanted a dinning space in the kitchen. This hided the
intention of having the living room as the single domestic public space, where guests where received in
an always tidy area, while the kitchen was the really everyday living area. That led to the creation on the
lavoro (working room), an in-between space amidst the kitchen and the living room where housework
or hobbies could be carried out.
Figure 2: Nucleo Noncello, 1964 (Giulio Brunetta, 1906-1978)

In the Portuguese experience of Olivais in the 1960s, near Lisbon, the INA-Casa process had a great
influence in the way the building process was methodically conceived (defining local materials and
construction methods easily used and done). There was a level of austerity difficult to understand
nowadays, like the absence of hot water (except in the tub) in the lower rent buildings, but, as in Italy,
there was the explicit intention to offer as many square meters as possible. Sergio Fernandez, a
Portuguese architect, refers the Italian lavoro3 in some buildings, but there also experiences similar to
the laboratory-kitchen or in-between solutions. That is why Nuno Portas classified the whole urban
intervention as experimental4, although in its own proposal (with Bartolomeu Costa Cabral) he chose to
offer a kitchen with enough space for the house tasks (while the lounge maintained its own dining area
for special occasions).
arquitectura de habitao em Olivais Sul, Lisboa 1959-1969, 2007, Cmara Municipal de Lisboa, page 137, ISBN:
978-972-8543-08-2
4
Idem, page 147
Figure 3: Housing building in Olivais, 1963 (Nuno Portas, 1934- and Bartolomeu Costa Cabral, -)
There was an inquiry to understand the dwellers reaction to their new homes, and there was a great deal
of satisfaction, since their previous houses were, to say the least, shanty. But the internal solutions were
not understood by then as a final proposal, as most of the dwellers adapted the existing spaces to reach
their own expectations and ambitions. Sometimes the complete opposite of what the architect intended.
In the lowest rent buildings the kitchen opened to the lounge was considered intolerable, because it made
impossible to keep private their house tasks. The modernist hatch between the kitchen and the dining
room was closed, but the most impressive change was the use of a bedroom as a proper dining room
(alluding to the bourgeois house), even if some of the family members had to renounce to their own
privacy (by sharing their rooms or even sleeping in the living room).
Figure 4: Housing building in Olivais, category 1, 1963 (Joo Vasconcelos Esteves, -)

Interestingly, in the higher categories of the subsidized program that consisted Olivais (and the previous
Alvalade neighborhood) there was still some traces of the old bourgeois house, with a maids room with
its own bathroom. Even if the external image of the building was undoubtedly Modern.
Figure 5: Housing Building in Alvalade, 1959 (nicknamed Bairro das Estacas: Pole District, because
of the pilotis), with maid quarters (Ruy dAthouguia, 1922-2004)
Proving that the shapes that manifest old habits can still be of use, this solution was mentioned as an
important one for todays households, where sons and daughters tend to stay at their parents house for
much longer: this private apartment would thereby be a solution for their need of independence5.
Plebeian Ambitions
Among the models gathered in this study, little are those who intend to make a direct reference to popular
or vernacular rooths, even if we can relate the Italian lavoro with the desire to establish a home around
the modern fire place: the kitchen. Joo Pedro Pena Lopes interprets this desire in a very clear way,
putting the apartments fireplace in the kitchen, instead of the living room, keeping this space as an
occasional one.
Figure 6: Housing Building in Meda, 2001 (Joo Pedro Pena Lopes, ...-...)
We can identify a phenomenon of transport of the plebeian house by the future tenants. We must take
into account that what a person desires is, in most situations, based upon on its own knowledge, in their
own experience. The SAAL (Servio de Apoio Ambulatrio Local Local Support Service) was a
movement, as political as architectural, that intended to give people a decent home. Starting immediately
after the 25th of April 1974 (when the Authoritarian Portuguese Regime fell), the idea was to promote
Monteys, Xavier; Fuertes, Pere Casa Collage un ensayo sobre la arquitectura de la casa, 4th edition,
2005, Editorial Gustavo Gili, SA, Barcelona, ISBN 84-252-1869-1

local and direct contact between architects and dwellers, which meant that the populations would
participate actively in their own homes designs. In one of the inquiries a housewife demanded a stone
floor for her kitchen in order to have a place to light a fire. Far from being amusing, this shows how
decadent their previous life was, but also the ignorance of something as simple as a stove or even a
fireplace. Therefore the desire to keep upon ones known models.
The architects visions and predictions

Being a Modernist ambition to start from a clean slate, where all the ancient housing types would be
forgotten, some architects maintained for a long time the presence of the enfilade, where rooms with no
specific use would succeed one another. Karl Ehn, in his Karl Marx Hof (1926) chooses the traditional
enfilade in his one-bedroom apartments, while with the same 53 square meters Alexander Klein, in Bad
Drrenberg (1928) offered in his C2 Cell a 2 bedroom apartment with a fully equipped bathroom. The
difference stands in the assumption that social housing couldnt be the mere adjustment of the bourgeois
house to a smaller scale. A new Type in housing should be created in order to respond to the new needs of
society, culturally and sanitarily.
Figure 7: Karl Marx Hof, 1926 (Karl Ehn, 1884 1957) and Bad Drrenberg, C2 Cell, 1928, Alexander
Klein (1879-1961)
Modern living
The traditional scheme of reception-private-service is therefore substituted by the modern publicprivate-service sequence, where each spacial definition had a new meaning:
Reception > Public: to entertain was understood as a ritual where a visit was prepared trough a special
room where, for example, the familys valuables where exposed. Its use was occasional, remaining the
family in a daily basis in the private areas. When it becomes public, it still is a space where visitors
had access in most occasions, but it loses its occasional status to become the households gathering room
(although still competing with the kitchen). In fact, Modern architects thought that would be illogical to
try to offer representation spaces when areas where so scarce.
Private > Private: in this context the houses private spaces is re-evaluated: the bedroom becomes
bedrooms, plural, translating a need for privacy among the household, rather than the household and
visitors or friends. The real revolution, however, occurs when children are separated according to their
gender (creating the three bedroom house). Even if these rooms are minimum, privacy is still an important
achievement, when comparing to the previous houses for the poor.
Service > Service: in the bourgeois house the service areas include a spacious kitchen, a pantry and even
the maids bedroom. In this context, service included the staff, and not a mere definition of space.
Modernism abolished, obviously, the staff in their social housing models, and service areas became

practical ones, like a bathroom (another achievement) or a kitchen: its social aspect was denied and it
was intended like a mere extension of the human body: like a laboratory to mix elements (like in the
Franfurt-kitchen, by Ernst May and Grete Schtte-Lihotsky).
Figure 8: Reception > Public; Private > Private; Service > Service
Moderate Modern
After the II World War Modernism started a revision process where its dogmas where reviewed, formal
aspects included. The New Nordic Empiricism was the starting point, followed by the Italian Neorealism. In this specific example, as it was said, the future dwellers were listened, in order to try to
understand their needs and dreams. The main difference between the INA-Casa process and the Olivais
Portuguese experience was the order of the process itself, since the inquiries to the population where
made after the houses have been built. The consequence was that in Portugal many dwellers revealed to
be dissatisfied (making the above mentioned alterations), while in Italy, far from being a consensual
process, there were some constants among projects that proved, partially, that there was some consensus
(like the need of a lavoro).
Unmeasured Modern
A small reference here to the Russian Constructivism, where the entire notion of the traditional house was
destroyed, starting with its occupants, the traditional family. The Individual would be the main unit of the
shelter since all was defined according to the inexistence of any family ties. Communal spaces
substituted the kitchen, the bathrooms; bedroom would be bigger in order to offer a private lounge space
to its occupant, when the apartment was shared, in the transition model from the traditional house to the
final Dom-kommuna.
Figure 9: Dom-kommuna Narkomfin, 1927 (Moisei Ginzburg, 1892 - 1946)
The House as a Shape: signs and symbols

The development of the idea of social housing, even before it was called this way, was based upon the
urgent need to solve housing problems in the big cities where the Industrial Revolution had a strong
presence. The migrating population left their houses in the country and flew to the city, where the homes
they could afford where shared rooms resulting from speculation.
A political instrument
The previous life of the populations was far from being ideal, since their houses had no comfort at all, and
famine was common, as agriculture started to decline. Even so, a bucolic image of a little hut in the
countryside was starting to being built, as the complete opposite of the contemporary city.
Garden-cities were hardly social housing, but they were the first models to explore the idea of an urban
settlement in harmony with nature. In Letchworth (1905) Geoffrey Lucas (1872-1947) referred that the
houses were design in order to look like cottages rather than small houses6. This was a posture denied by
Modern architects, like Mies Van der Rohe (1886-1969) who headed the Weissenhof Colony (1927).
Numerous architects participated in order to show healthy new homes7. Their image was white, pure,
Modern, the opposite of the previous example, and once empowered, the Nazi regime considered it
intolerable. It promotes the isolated house with a traditional sloped roof, as in Rottweil, a settlement
built far away from the city centres. The benefits were double for the regime: the poorer were kept out of
sight and people were supposed to be happy with their cottages.
Figure 10: Weissenhof, 1927 (Mies van der Rohe, 1886-1969) and Rottweill, 1937-1940 (...)
The Portuguese totalitarian regime of the Estado Novo (New Estate) also tried this path in their own
proposal of social housing, with the Casas Econmicas (Economical Houses) 1918 project. The urban
structure was still the bourgeois one, and in 1928, trough the assumed influence of the Garden-Cities,
single houses surrounded by a little garden typology was used to achieve that peaceful and bucolic
character, proving that the process was filled with a strong symbolism and an elaborate ideology8.
The reference to an upraised social status is thus obvious in these experiments that we can assimilate, in
most cases, to right-wing political thinking (Garden-cities excluded, of course). The basis of all these
conceptions of a single house for the poor was the traditional family, precisely what was put in to
question by the Soviet Communists, who intended, as referred, a communitarian living in buildings
conceived according to a beehive. Even so, the communist regime became suspicious of this family
revolution, opting later for more soothing solutions for the Russian dwellers. According to Bruno Zevi
(quoted by Leonardo Benevolo) totalitarianism is always hostile to Modernism, since it admits free-will
and self-determination, a menace to the established order or at least a question better not raised9.
www.tomorrowsgardencity.com/system/files/25_July_1905.pdf, [01.2009]
Schoenauer, Norbert 6,000 Years of Housing, revised and expanded edition, W. W. Norton & Company, New
York, NY 10110, 2000; ISBN 0-393-73052-2
8
arquitectura de habitao em Olivais Sul, Lisboa 1959-1969, 2007, Cmara Municipal de Lisboa, page 148, ISBN:
978-972-8543-08-2
9
Benevolo, Leonardo Histria da Arquitectura Moderna, 2004, 3th edition second reeprint, Editora
Perspectiva S. A.
Singular/Plural
We are used to think about the Modern Movement as a clean slate in architecture, and in its models we
can hardly recognise the house weve talking about. As this was considered inadequate, new types were
proposed although nowadays we tend to think that the real dwellers (not as imagined by Modernists) were
the real inadequate elements.
The house was the primal element of all Modernist Architecture, as there was a need to urgently respond
to the housing shortage that derived into a stacking solution, instead of the isolated house. Efficiency and
repetition become housing standards, neighbourhoods becoming a repetition of standardized cells. Ernst
May (1886-1970), for instance, saw the city as a linear process based upon repetition10.
According to the new city, that was idealized backwards (house > building > block > city), its growth
was an inverse process, starting with the individual towards the collective. This was an attempt to
overcome housing shortage, speculation and urgency.
However Modernist Architecture wasnt that cold or disconnected of the concept of the primitive hut,
as the idea of the House was present in many proposal from Modernist Architects, even if disguised under
their efficiency and novelty. Some extreme functionalists proposed a scientific approach that established
almost mathematical proportions, in area, sunlight and air, according to the number of occupants of a
determined cell. The most famous example was Alexander Klein (1879-1961), whose cells for Bad
Drrenberg had variable area if one room was to be occupied by one or two dwellers.
Figure 11: Cells C2, C7, C9 and C16: for couples with one children, two children with separate
rooms, two same sex children sharing a room and three or four children; the area of the lounge increases
with the number of dwellers.
Unit/Multiple
The idea of repetition, even if the units were infinitely stacked or side-by-side, it can correspond to a
definition of house, formal and anthropologically, where the dweller is able to recognize its own
house. Le Corbusier (1887-1965) produces an important investigation upon these principles, even if most
of them remained pure experiments. The Pavillion de lEsprit Nouveau was conceived as temporary
structure for the 1925 Paris Decorative Arts International Exhibition. Rather than a pavilion, it was a
house, a duplex striped of ornament that served as well as manifest against the notion of decorative arts.
Demolished after the exhibition, it served as a unit for the project, never built, of the Immeuble-Villas,
where those duplex houses, with a private courtyard were stacked and joined side-by-side in order to
compose a big housing building.
This project was no social housing building, but illustrates the house has a shape and a meaning in
Corbusiers thinking. In 1925 he finally manages to put together a neighbourhood destined to the workers
of the Frugs Company, in Pessac. The Quartier Moderne was composed by side-by-side houses (the
10
Montaner, Josep Maria Depois do Movimento Moderno: Arquitectura da segunda metade do sc. XX
Editorial Gustavo Gili, Barcelona, 2001, pg. 139, ISBN 84-252-1828-4

Modern compromise with House and Density), and it was based in a 5 by 5 meters cube upon which the
traditional local houses were made. Besides his efforts, the use of a traditional construction process, rather
than the idealized (but hard to put into practice) projected concrete elevated the cost of the houses to a
level that a worker hardly could sustain.
Figure 12: the Pavillion de lEsprit Nouveau, the Immeuble-Villas and the Quartier Modern Frugs
Street/House
The relation that is established between the street and the cell is something that cannot be set appart when
thinking about a house. Its a place for conviviality and community life, especially if the inner cell is
as small as it tends to be in social housing. The traditional European city, dense, vertical and clustered,
wasnt able to offer this kind of use of the street with quality or hygiene, but since the first planned city
expansions a more open and useful outer space become part of the commission.
The Spangen Quarter (1919), from Michiel Brinkman (1873-1925), was one of the first examples to use
the outside gallery not only as a mere entrance to the flats, but also as a space capable of supporting urban
life. And, until today, remains one of the most successful. This elevated street lies in the 2nd floor of the
building, since the flats below have direct access to the ground street. The upper flats are duplexes so
they can all have direct access to the gallery/street.
Over the time there have been many examples of these streets in the air, but their failure was due to a
question of scale, that is mastered in Spangen: the gallery has a width between 2,2 and 3,3 meters and its
only two floors away from the ground. Apart from this there were also elevators that made possible to the
milkman and the baker to deliver milk and bread as in any ground floor. Therefore the identification of a
house occurs not only when each entrance accesses the flat directly from the street, but also because
these streets, real or virtual, are defined as such by the kind of urban living it supports.
Figure 13: The Spangen Quarter: the galleries and the cells (ground/first floor; second/third floor)
Although the top floors have duplexes, in the flats below Brinkman chooses to overlay single-floor flats,
although the top one as a private stair directly from the ground. Despite being a miscellaneous solution
between the traditional horizontal street and the very Modern vertical street, it proves wrong Keneth

Frampton when he states that vertical streets never were an effective solution compared to the ones in the
ground11.
House/Street
After the 2nd World War the urban solutions reviewed completely the traditional city, abandoning the
elements that had been defining it throughout the centuries: the street, the plot or the block. Buildings
became out of scale, as a result of an almost infinite stacking of individual cells served by communal
daycares, washrooms or evens stores. Even if the duplex and the gallery are inherited from previous
experiments, the house becomes undoubtedly the starting point of the new settlements. Le Corbusiers
Units dHabitation are known as the main example of this new urban attitude, mainly the one in
Marseille (1947-1953), although there are others: Nantes (1955), Berlin (1958), Briey-la-Fort (1963) or
Firminy (1965), these being, perhaps, more interesting for us since their units where smaller, for example.
Figure 14: Unit dHabitation in Briey-la-Fort (1963): section, juxtaposition of cells and photo
As a result of the L-shaped living cell, conceived as bottle supported by a cellaret (the structure) the
street becomes an inner-corridor supposed to support urban life. As for the cell, the attempt was to
recreate a house, a three-bedroom duplex for a normal family. The living-room has a double-height
ceiling (partially), with a balcony which was intended to be an outdoor extension of the cell, just like in a
house: the faade of the flat was a two-storey residence...
House/Building
This kind of solution for the faade is very important for the identification of my house among the other
cells. In the previous example the cells remained rather anonymous, due to the whole scale of the
building, but in 1952 Chamberlin, Powell e Bon12 conceived a whole estate just in the middle of London
that solved the problem. In an area devastated by war, a truly Modern urban layout was juxtaposed to a
traditional fabric, but in an attempt to dialogue with the surroundings, buildings where smaller, shorter,
more human, if we prefer. The layout of the cell is very similar to the one in the Units dHabitation,
despite occupying just one side of the gallery (which became open). The living-room balcony was
double-heightened so the above bedroom would lean over it. As the balcony was closed sideways, the
dweller, from his bedroom or lounge, only saw his houses outer space. My house became identifiable
from the inside and the outside.
11
Frampton, Keneth Historia critica de la arquitectura moderna - Editorial Gustavo Gili, S.A. 08029
Barcelona, 1996, pg. 273, ISBN 84-252-1628-1
12
1920 1999 (Geoffry Chamberlin); 1919 1978 (Peter Joe Powell); 1919 1978 (Christoph Bon)
Figure 15: Golden Lane Estate (1952): rear faade (gallery and bedrooms), front faade (with the doubleheight balcony) and typical cell.
As a proof of the success of the whole housing complex, dwellers have an internet site13 where they invite
all dwellers to publish their photo in order to recognize them as neighbours and discuss problems and
solutions for the complex. A kind of pride also found in Ernst Mays (1886-1970) Praunheim (1927)
where the author is recognized and is drawings published in their site14.
Building/Maze
The main element that differentiates the previous examples is thus the scale of the complex, as in the
promotion of a sense of belonging (and not as an evaluation of the whole architectural project). The use
of solutions as the duplex, the open gallery and such cannot overcome reality, even if theory tries to
defend any gallery as a street in the sky. The Robin Hood Gardens project (1972), from Alison (19281993) and Peter Smithson (1923-2003) tried to encourage a review of Modernisms urban dogmas,
arguing that they promoted anonymous and sterile cities. The cells were one floor and two floors
solutions (upwards and downwards) in an attempt to converge as many doors as possible to the gallery.
The cells entrances where positioned in niches in the gallery so neighbours could meet at their
doorsteps talking and saying their hellos.
Nevertheless, the anonymity of the whole building and its galleries, which all looked the same with no
special features that qualified then as my street where my house is, condemned the architects
intentions: as a solution, it became not much different from another supposedly Modern buildings (plenty
of proposals we see in our suburbs are mere misrepresentations of Modernisms intentions).
Figure 16: Robin Hood Gardens (1972): the building and its galleries.
House/House
The fall of the totalitarian regime in Portugal creates the opportunity to express political alternatives to
fascism, but also to try out architectural experiments that were forbidden by the Portugus Suave (Mild
Portuguese Style) defended by the regime. In 1974 the references were no longer Modern ones, even less
13
http://www.goldenlaneestate.org/, [09.2010]
14
http://www.siedlerverein.de/, [09.2010]

the soviet Constructivism. The INA-Casa in Italy was taken into account, since its purposes fitted the
Portuguese needs: suppress housing shortage, to promote construction and create jobs. The use of
common labour to build with traditional techniques helped in every aspect, and in Portugal dwellers were
even supposed to help to build their own homes.
The inquiries made to the population, inherited from the INA-Casa but also considered necessary after the
partial success of Olivais, due to the resistance to Modern solutions (kitchens, dining-rooms...).
Nevertheless, between the north and the south of Portugal different aspirations were listened, according to
the models that the future dwellers had, even if the political/practical program (the above mentioned
SAAL) was the same.
The architects also played an important role in this process, and up North there was the consensus among
designers that the traditional city needed mending, since the pre-existing spatial and social order seemed
convenient: the attempt was to keep populations in their context, the city, not a suburb. The house
becomes the base-unit of the projects of, for example, lvaro Siza, perhaps still a Modern idea, but that
was adapted to the surrounding scale: the row-houses in Bairro de So Victor (1976) reveals influences
from the Modernist projects of Oud or Taut15 and corresponds to an economical way to give dwellers a
house.
Figure 17: So Victor neighbourhood, 1976

The need to establish a closer dialogue with its surroundings in the Bairro da Boua, who were higher,
for instance, than in So Victor, defines a four-storey building, but even here the main unit is still the
cell, or the house: the building is like the overlap of two rows of houses, duplexes with a direct access to
the ground floor or to a gallery in the upper row.
Figure 18: Boua neighbourhood: the 1977 project, revised internally in 2004 when the construction
was completed.
15
Costa, Alexandre Alves quoted by Bandeirinha, Jos Antnio O processo SAAL e a arquitectura no 25 de
Abril de 1974, 2007, Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, page 219, ISBN: 978-972-8704-76-6
Figure 19: Boua neighbourhood, 2004, after completion/renovation.

The upper gallery, very narrow, as no use as a cells outdoor space, or even as a meeting spot. In one
hand, we can considerer that as flaw, since offering more outside space, especially in social housing, is
always a plus, as people are not oblige to make use of it. One the other hand, in 1977 Siza Vieira had
already realized how utopian the streets in the sky where, preferring to design a simple outside corridor.
And again, in Portuguese culture, privacy is very dear to dwellers and the option was to offer patios inside
the houses perimeter. This was one of the aspects that were redefined in 2004, since most dwellers closed
those patios in search of some extra area. And their conversions were acknowledged and adapted to new
blocks that completed the whole project.
Conclusion
The attempt to make any house a home has many different characters, since it derives from ones culture
but also from the previous living experiences. Insalubrity and degradation dont define for themselves the
desire for any kind of house, but in one which complies with the dwellers expectations in social
representation.
As architecture in general gave up trying to change the (whole) world and started to pay attention to
actual needs and a changing society (rather than respond to an intended society), models started to be
created taking into account social and sociability needs, rather than just being functional.
Nevertheless the previous efforts werent inglorious, as the house as a unit was an explored theme in
every type of dwelling. We must take into account that is not always possible to build with low density,
since a tight budget almost always means exactly that: density. And as we observe a mere duplex in a
high rise building we must have in mind that this kind of homeliness wasnt spontaneous but a result of
an intense investigation and experiment.
Figures
Fig. 1: Sindicato Nacional dos Arquitectos Arquitectura Popular em Portugal, 4 edio, 2004, ISBN 97297668-7-8
Fig. 2: Authors drawing, based upon the model presented in: Cambi, Di Sivo, Steiner Viviendas en bloques
alineados, 1992, Barcelona, Editorial Gustavo Gili, S.A., ISBN: 968-887-186-9
Fig. 3: Authors drawing, based upon the model presented in: Cmara Municipal de Lisboa, Outubro 1967
Habitao Social na cidade de Lisboa, 1959-1966
Fig. 4: Authors drawing, based upon the model presented in: Cmara Municipal de Lisboa, Outubro 1967
Habitao Social na cidade de Lisboa, 1959-1966
Fig. 5: Authors drawing, based upon the model presented in: Costa, Joo Pedro Bairro de Alvalade um
paradigma no urbanismo portugus, Livros Horizonte/Faculdade de Arquitectura da UTL, 2 edio 2005, ISBN
972-24-1382-4;

Picture: http://premiosvalmor.blogspot.com/2005/11/19501959_20.html, [10.2010]
Fig. 6: Authors drawing, based upon the model presented in: Coelho, Antnio Baptista; Coelho, Pedro Baptista
Habitao de Interesse Social em Portugal, 2009, Livros Horizonte, ISBN: 978 972 24 1655 9
Fig. 7: Authors drawing, based upon the model presented in: French, Hilary - 'Key Urban Housing of the
Twentieth Century', 2008 Laurence King Publishing Ltd, ISBN-13: 978-1-85669-564-0; Klein, Alexander Vivienda Mnima, 1906 1957, 1980, Editorial Gustavo Gili, S.A.
Fig. 8: Authors drawings.
Fig. 9: Authors drawing, based upon the model presented in: French, Hilary - 'Key Urban Housing of the
Twentieth Century', 2008 Laurence King Publishing Ltd, ISBN-13: 978-1-85669-564-0;
http://teoriarquitectura.blogspot.com/2009/06/bloco-como-paradigma-moderno.html, [04.2010]
Fig. 10: Roger Sherwood Modern Housing Prototypes, 2002 Harvard Paperbacks, ISBN-10: 0674579429,
ISBN-13: 9780674579422; Schoenauer, Norbert 6,000 Years of Housing, revised and expanded edition, 2000,
W. W. Norton & Company, New York, NY 10110, ISBN: 0-393-73052-2
Fig. 11: Authors drawing, based upon the models presented in: Klein, Alexander - Vivienda Mnima, 1906
1957, 1980, Editorial Gustavo Gili, S.A.
Fig. 12: http://factoidz.com/towards-a-new-architecture-le-corbusiers-modernist-manifesto/;
http://www.retropolis.net/exposition/newspirit.html, [10.2010]; http://dlhtms.net63.net/memoire%20A4.htm;
http://soa.syr.edu/faculty/bcoleman/arc523/lectures/523.lecture.housing.packages.html, [10.2010]; Curtis, William
J. R., 1986 Le Corbusier, Ideas and Forms Phaidon Press Limited, reprint 1997, pg. 60, ISBN 0 7148 2790 8
Fig. 13: http://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorcasino/2883343401/in/photostream/, [05.2011]; authors drawing,
based upon the model presented in: French, Hilary - 'Key Urban Housing of the Twentieth Century', 2008 Laurence
King Publishing Ltd, ISBN-13: 978-1-85669-564-0
Fig. 14: http://blog.pressebook.fr/giulio/2009/01/23/contre-larchitecture/;
http://www.bwk.tue.nl/architectuur/dmw/group4/le%20corbusier%20unite.htm, [10.2010],
http://www.obiwi.fr/voyage-decouvertes/carnets-de-route/86173-la-cite-radieuse-de-briey-en-lorraine, [05.2011]
Fig. 15: http://www.flickr.com/photos/trevira/2864614421/in/photostream/, [10.2010]; authors drawing, based
upon the model presented in: French, Hilary - 'Key Urban Housing of the Twentieth Century', 2008 Laurence King
Publishing Ltd, ISBN-13: 978-1-85669-564-0
Fig. 16: http://www.parameters.cc/blog/2008/05/15/robin-hood-gardens-ii/, [10.2010]
Fig. 17: http://www.housingprototypes.org/project?File_No=POR002, [10.2010]
Fig 18: authors drawings, based upon the models presented in: Santos, Jos Paulo dos (ed.) lvaro Siza, Obras
y Proyectos, 1954-1992 1993, Gustavo Gili, ISBN: 84-252-1513-7.
Fig. 19: photographer: Joo Sousa,
http://www.mimoa.eu/projects/Portugal/Porto/Bou%E7a%20Housing%20Complex, [10.2010]
References
Afonso, Ana Isabel (2008) - Grupo Domstico e Mudana Social: abordagens quantitativas e qualitativas.
http://ceas.iscte.pt/etnografica/docs/vol_04/N1/Vol_iv_N1_153-182.pdf, [10.2008]
Aymonino, Carlo (1973) La Vivienda Racional: ponencias de los congresos CIAM 1929-1930 - Editorial
Gustavo Gili, S.A. 08029 Barcelona, 1973
Banham, Reyner (1959) Neoliberty: the italian retreat from modern architecture, in The Architectural Review,
n. 747, vol. 125, April 1959
Frampton, Keneth (1996) Historia critica de la arquitectura moderna - Editorial Gustavo Gili, S.A. 08029
Barcelona, 1996

Klein, Alexander Vivienda Mnima: 1906 - 1957, Editorial Gustavo Gili, 1980
Lynch, Patrick (2008) Aldo Rossi Knew all about the symbolic power of a kitchen table, AJ (The Architects
Journal), Greater London House, Hampstead Road, London NW1 7EJ, 28.02.08, page 22, 2008
Montaner, Josep Maria (2001) Depois do Movimento Moderno: Arquitectura da segunda metade do sc. XX
Editorial Gustavo Gili, Barcelona, 2001
Monteys, Xavier; Fuertes, Pere Casa Collage un ensayo sobre la arquitectura de la casa, 4 edio, 2005,
Editorial Gustavo Gili, SA, Barcelona
arquitectura de habitao em Olivais Sul, Lisboa 1959-1969, 2007, Cmara Municipal de Lisboa, ISBN:
978-972-8543-08-2

The Minimum Cell As A House

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Workshop 01 Housing Finance and Regulation